The Mountains that I Face

(Sorry I'm writing so much, you don't have to read it, I'm just trying to get all the English thoughts out of my head so that I won't accidently speak English when I'm in Quebec for five weeks this summer, because if I do I'll get sent home.)

Ah yes, just choose joy she said, it make sense, and it will be lovely she said.
But there are mountains right?
Mountains we have to climb.
Joy is not a tropical island reached by a speeding fast jet plane.
A plane that speeds away from the mountains.
Joy is on the mountain. Joy is a way of climbing the mountain.
But I think this way takes time to figure out.
Like any skill we are trying to learn or habit we are trying to make: we don't wake up one morning doing it perfect, we fall and we stumble and we get a little better slowly, slowly, slowly.
That's why I say I'm sharing my journey with you as I stumble along.
I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not very good at whatever it is, but I'm doing it and I'm falling, I'm laying down, then I'm getting up again, I'm growing, and I'm learning.
Sometimes I believe lies without knowing it, but then hopefully my eyes are opened later.
I'm slow.
Slow, slow, slow. But I'm climbing.
That's the way I am for everything else so why not for this joy journey?
I'm learning to be patient with myself and forgive myself when I fall down. It helps me be brave enough to get back up.
So what I want to share with you are some of the things getting in the way of my joyfulness: the mountains I'm trying to learn to climb, the mindsets I'm trying to get rid of.
The first one is hopelessness. I talk about that more here: http://aragtaghooligan.blogspot.ca/2012/11/i-shall-hope.html
Basically it's just the idea that there is a lot wrong with the world, but I'm trying to believe that God is in control: that the bad can be made good (maybe not the good we'd like but beauty can come from brokenness), hearts can be changed, and at the end it will all be worth the beautiful forever together with Him. If we give up because it's too hard, well that's just a waste of time and energy when we could be dancing up the mountain.
The second mountain is guilt.
It's odd because I believe that Jesus' death means there is now no condemnation for those who believe. Everything we've done wrong is forgiven. We are free to grow without hating ourselves for the mistakes we make along the way, and yet oh man do I ever hate myself sometimes.
Guilt is a huge mountain in my life.
I feel guilty about everything.
I feel guilty about what I do and about what I don't do. I feel guilty when I decide to take a break or not to bother with that extra effort when I know my paper's good enough because I think about how I could have gotten a few more marks although it would have come at a cost and I probably needed a nap more than five more marks. I feel guilty when I spend money even if its on something that everyone else says is worth it because I could have given that money away or because if I ever become homeless it will be all my fault. I worry about things going wrong, not so much because I'm not willing to go through a tough time, but because I can't face the shame and guilt of knowing that I brought it on myself through bad decisions. Then I feel guilty about worrying when I should be trusting. I feel guilty when I'm crying myself to sleep because I know that others have it worse than me. I feel guilty for being sad because I know I should be at peace, be content, be thankful, and have joy. I feel guilty for feeling guilty because I know I should forgive myself.

The weird thing is that neither of these mountains need to be mountains. I don't need to feel guilty because I am forgiven. I don't need to be hopeless because there is hope. But see, the mountains are in my mind and that is almost worse than if they were just real on the outside. If they were real on the outside I could use the truth in my mind like secret weapons like big blasting water guns to corrode the mountains and break apart the rock till its just a lovely hilly country but not a big bad mountain. However, when the mountains are in my mind they fight the truth, they grow over the truth. I have the weapons I need but they are just ideas in my mind that are hard to believe when the mountains are growing over them.

I want to be a joyful person and I want to have faith, but the funny thing is no one has told me how to do it. They've told me what they think is true; they've told me what to believe, but after I understood all that they didn't tell me how to use it against the mountains. They don't hold my hand on the journey. I get left alone sometimes staring at the mountains with these weapons I don't know how to use/ how to believe, trying desperately to figure out the first step.

Here's my first step: forgiving myself for not being joyful, for not dancing up the mountain, even as I try to dance up the mountain.

I said yesterday that I hate duty. I didn't explain that I hate duty because if you don't do a duty you have to feel guilty.

I said that I don't want to not do the things I should just because I'm freed from seeing them as duties. That's true. I want to dance joyfully up the mountains even though I'm trying not to see it as a duty so that I won't have to hate myself when I fall, but it's really, really hard to do.

My first step is forgiving myself for failing. I already haven't managed to be joyful.

That's ok, I'll never be joyful if I'm mad at myself for not being joyful.

Man life is confusing.

Forgive me for blabbering.

Oh Joy?

An Interjection: You know, I never expected anyone to really read these things, but a couple people do and I feel like I should apologize to y'all. See, I just write these for me. It's a chance to work through my thoughts and I share it because I'm a fairly open and honest person. I like sharing my thoughts to give others an opportunity to respond, to disagree or expand upon my thoughts so that I can grow, or maybe even so that WE can grow TOGETHER. I know a lot of people who write blogs to teach. I'm not a teacher. I'm not quite confident enough in my beliefs to share them as truths, or to push them upon you. I am ashamed sometimes because of this lack of confidence, and ashamed because of the juvenile, foolish, and incomplete nature of some of my thoughts. So I figured I'd take some time to say I'm sorry and to remind you that I am trying to share with you not wisdom but a journey. I hope you will be open to this, because I like you and I'd like to walk with you through life. That's all. Please don't expect me to be a Tree when I am a Sapling. I want to grow but I cannot give you maple syrup when I am so young, and can only share with you my growing song.

On to the Subject of Joy: That being said, I want to talk to you about joy, because joy is the word I've been mulling over for a while now. It is the thing I've been looking for and the thing I've been fighting against. I once saw a quotation that said "If you want to be happy, then be." I thought to myself, "It's not that simple." A year ago at my church the pastor taught a sermon on contentment, and I got angry. To some I seem like a joyful happy person, until they get to know me even just a little. Oh I try to embrace the moment and the littlest thing can light me up like a Christmas tree, but the smallest thing can also tear me up and bring me down. I give too much power to my circumstances. I haven't mastered the art of being at peace, content, joyful, or thankful in every circumstance. I let the worries about tomorrow ring loudest among the thoughts in my mind. I let the sorrows around me render me immovable. I have gotten angry at my maker for not fixing it all up right now. I get angry at myself for not solving problems, being kind all the time, and being positive. Nothing is good enough, it all makes me sad.

Clearly this isn't pleasant and you won't be surprised to know that I've longed for another way to live, ad yet...when people try to tell me to be positive, thankful, joyful, at peace, or content I get oh so mad. This is because I know that changing the way we think is hard and I feel like love gets left out if we just tell people who are struggling: well there's a better way to live ya know, so why aren't you doing that? However, I think it is possible that I have become stunted in joy by holding so tightly to my understanding that it is hard to live this way and that people who struggle with this need to be forgiven supported and loved. I'm not saying we shouldn't support, love, and be patient with people who struggle to be positive or what have you. I'm not saying that we should get mad at them for not being able to move on from their sadness and frustration with their circumstances. All I'm saying is that I (not necessarily you, but me) need to start to enjoy my life. I need to be thankful for what I have. I'm not going to get mad at myself when this takes a long time to learn, but I'm not going to sit around being sad all the time because I think other people should be patient with my sadness. The aha moment for me is when I realised that being thankful and enjoying life is a beautiful possibility that I can embrace, not a duty. I hate the idea of duty and so this has helped me like this concept much better.

I have no idea if any of this made sense. I'm sorry if it didn't or if it was offensive.

I wish people would stop talking about pride

I've noticed over the years that some of my dearest friends just love critiquing themselves for being too proud-full. It doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe I just don't know them well enough, but I've never noticed their pride. I've noticed confidence at times, but not a refusal to apologize when they make a mistake or to admit they are wrong if you confront them on something. In fact I've noticed just the opposite. I've noticed, in them, a humility and a willingness to admit that they aren't perfect and that they aren't done growing.

People talk about pride like it's the absolute worst bad trait out there and I've never understood why because I've never actually met a proud person.

I have met people who acted like they were way better than me when they weren't and originally refused to admit their mistakes, but every time I got closer to one of these people I discovered the truth of their self doubts. It's like my Mum says "sometimes short men try to make themselves taller by cutting off another man's legs." If someone is always acting like they are better than you it doesn't mean they believe it. It probably means they want to believe it.

I've heard too many whispered confessions followed up with the whispered fear of "am I a horrible person" to believe that people actually think they are awesome.

I think we all know we need to grow. I think we all know we make mistakes.

I think many of us don't know what to do with this knowledge. We don't know how to admit our mistakes, find forgiveness, and embrace growth: that's the problem! Not that we actually believe we are better than everyone else. So please either explain to me why I'm wrong or just stop going on about how we are all so pride-full, the pride is false, and it's covering up a bigger problem.

To All Who Are Still Breathing

I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Do you want to know something that really bothers me? I hate when people die and suddenly all us living put aside our bad memories, our fights, our annoyances, or the fact that we never even talked to the dead. Suddenly the dead are seen as being perfect when they lived and we wish we had hung out with them more. I have two things to say, and if they are offensive I apologize from the depths of my heart. 1. Nobody is perfect. I'm not saying we need to talk bad about the dead. That is disrespectful to their loved ones. However, I am just urging you to remember that perfection isn't what makes us valuable, because none of us are perfect. If you are still alive and you feel like you don't match up to the stories of when the dead were living, don't give up heart. You can still grow, you can still play a role, you can still be loved. 2. When people die we realize our differences are often so silly and we begin to wish we had spent more time with the dead when they were living. Look around you! There are so many lonely people who you might not have time to value or maybe they seem annoying to you, but I bet if they died today you'd wish you'd stepped up and said hey so why not do it right now? I'm not lecturing, I'm thinking out loud to myself, just narrating my own journey.

I'm Confused, Are Emotions Bad?

Today some friends of mine were making music, and, being the mix of odd, poetic, and philosophical that I am, I was sitting there dancing in my seat, enjoying it, and wondering why people love music so much: all at once.

We had also just eaten a glorious meal so I was thinking about food too. I had just met this new person and I was trying to make conversation with him so we started talking about food and music. Being the weirdo that I am I asked him if he liked food and music and he was just like "Of course I do, everyone does." But it got me to thinking: Why is this basically true?

What would life be like if you ate to stay alive? What if you just researched the most healthy diet and then ate that all the time instead of eating what you are in the mood for in the moment or what you just always enjoy? What if you never listened to music? What if you only owned animals for practical reasons (food sources/ transportation/ mouse killers/ security guards etc.) but not for bonding purposes, and what if you also only had friends for practical reasons? What if your friendships were like: I'll help you, and you'll help me but we will never just enjoy one another's company? What if you never did fun activities to rest, and merely had naps for the practical purpose of re-energizing yourself, but not to actually enjoy your down time?

Does this life sound nice to anyone at all? I really doubt it, BUT WHY? After all it is a very practical life. It's efficient. You could be healthy, live long, and be energized to do good practical work to make the world better in a practical way. So why does it sound like such a sad life?

Maybe it only sounds sad to me. As much as I am an analytical person sometimes, I'm also extremely emotional. I feel everything so deeply, that's actually why I think so much, because everything matters to me so I want so desperately to understand it. It's caused problems for me because most people I know are either extremely analytical or extremely emotional and many have trouble understanding both aspects of me. But, for me, life is something to be enjoyed and to be enjoyed deeply. These little things are layers of loveliness and little graces that make me happy.

I have often heard people tell me that it isn't wise to base decisions or beliefs in emotions because emotions are fleeting and changing. When I'm sad I've also been told that I need to accept life's tough situations and some how rise above my negative emotions. This never made sense to me because I feel like happiness is just so wonderful I wouldn't want to live without it, and to me it is intrinsically linked to negative emotions. Now I'm not saying we need bad times to appreciate good times. That idea gets flaunted a lot, but wouldn't you still enjoy chocolate ice cream even if you had never tasted broccoli? To quote Judith Guest I guess what I'm trying to say is "People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile." Maybe I only feel this way because I suck at rising above the negative times. To me it seems that if we don't allow ourselves to feel deeply the pain and anger of life it will be very difficult to deeply experience joy, peace, and love. I could be wrong. Maybe it is possible to feel peace in the bad times: to just carry on and not give into the pain without actually numbing yourself to the point of not feeling the joy, but if that is possible I am not there yet.

If this wasn't the case though, if we needed to feel the bad deeply to enjoy the good greatly, would you rather be fully emotional or fully analytic? Would you rather just be practical and think about things without feeling them? Would you rather just not be affected emotionally and not revel in enjoyment?

I guess all I'm trying to do is ask why do emotions always get such a bad rap when they are so beautiful, and why is being emotional seen as a bad thing when very few/none of us would really want to live an emotionless life????
I don't understand.

How Do We Disagree?

Tolerance, Free Speech, disagreeing, respect, disrespect, rude offended.

I feel as though we have made things way more complicated than they need to be.

Here's the thing, I travel in a wide variety of circles. I know people who believe a whole bunch of different things and I'm friends with all of them.

I'm talking about religious, political, artistic, and lifestyle beliefs.

It gets crazy complicated when I try to add myself into the equation. I've been struggling for a very long time to figure out what I believe while also listening to the wide variety of conflicting beliefs of my dear, dear friends.

But I don't think it has to be this complicated.

I always see myself as being on the same 'team' as the people I 'discuss' with. I don't think of these as fights where I am on an opposing team trying to get the other person to agree with me. I think of us as both trying to find truth and to understand each other better. Maybe I'll change my mind, or maybe they will, or maybe we will realise that we are both part right and part wrong and we will both change our mind, or maybe neither of us will change our mind, maybe we will continue to disagree, but maybe we will understand each other better.

What I've been doing since high school, in order to keep people from feeling like I'm fighting against them, is saying "this is what I believe but I could be wrong."

I get in a lot of trouble from people who agree with me for always qualifying what I say with "I could be wrong." People tell me that I can't really believe what I say I believe if I'm not presenting it to others as the truth. They say if I care about my beliefs and find they have impacted my life in a good way then I should be sharing them with the people I love.

The people who disagree with me love when I say "this is just what I believe." They usually end up saying "hey man you believe what you believe I'll believe what I believe thanks for not shoving your beliefs down my throat."

Sometimes it almost gets to the place where it's like oh hey you believe what you believe I'll believe what I want to believe and we're all right. This is problematic on a critical thinking and philosophical level.

The truth may be more complex than we think it is. It MIGHT be a complicated conglomeration of bits and pieces of things that different people believe BUT I don't think it can simultaneously be two fully contradictory things.

So we are stuck with one truth, but we can not all seem to agree what it is and some people don't even think they know what it is.

It can be hard if you don't know what to believe because everyone tries to convince you and you try to be open to all of their ideas but you are never free to go figure out what you believe because you get stuck inside a tug of war.

However, all of this is also confusing for people who know what they believe as well. They want to be able to be confident because they are, they want to share what they think will help others, but they need to understand that not everyone agrees and they need to not disrespect those who disagree with them.

I think we all need to learn how to disagree better.

Why can't we just be like "this is what I believe is true and this is why I think I'm right and you are wrong, now please explain your view." then listen and if you still disagree why can't we just be like "Oh, well I still disagree but that's really interesting thanks for sharing and also for listening." Why is there so much pressure to agree with everyone or to disagree but then suggest that we might both be right. Why can't we just straight up disagree but still be respectful? Why do people get offended when someone disagrees with them? It isn't offensive to me if you say you disagree with me, it is only offensive if you hurt me in any way for believing what I believe or attempt to force me to agree with you.

Why is this all so complicated?

In Progress List of Reasons I'm Still Happy I Came

Sometimes I get so stressed out with school. In these times I trick myself into believing its been three dark years of nothing but stress that won't even get me a job in the end. It's times like this when I need a list of all the poetic parts of my university experience that have made it worthwhile.
I guess I'm sharing this to inspire you to remind yourself of the poetic aspects of your own life!

1.Intense conversations on the bridge about death with almost strangers.

2.I met my kindred spirit. We have gone from strangers on the stairs, to being unable to separate in the link, sliding down the bannister, spontaneous picnics, long hikes around campus, studying on the river steps, to sleepovers, weekly lunches or dinners, barefoot pasta picnics, walks that end at black honey, and always being there for the other when needed. However, so many things still haven't changed. We still cry together, and "Let Saturday go," and have late night life talks in each other's bedroom like homework doesn't exist.

3.A Beautiful church community.

4.Making other fascinating and fabulous friends.

5. Learning how to grow up and the importance of interdependence.

6. Learning what I believe, and growing in my understanding of the things I already believed.

7. Learning how to disagree in a good way.

8. Learning about the past and the present.

9. Learning to write more clearly.

10. Going to one sweet folk concert.

11.Discovering Food Not Bombs and talking about Jesus with stranger's while doing dishes with them in somebody else's kitchen.

12.River walking with Cheryl.

13. An abundance of poetic coffee shops.

14. Islands.

15.Summer time adventures in places I never would have heard of if I didn't come here and meet the people I did.

16. Amazing opportunities working and volunteering with children!

17. Literacy advocacy!

18. A class that became family who I cried with, had amazing conversations, played board games, went to the zoo, had picnics, or campfires, and went hiking in the woods.

19. One of the most poetic winter vacations ever. (Making art out of plates broken by laughter, scary ski lifts, and snow shoeing).

20. Getting to literally be a clown!

21. Learning how to canoe.

22. Coolest hillside view ever.

23.A variety of introspective classes that let me draw pictures, journal, reflect on my own experiences and beliefs, and even write, read and listen to poetry.

24. Paint-a-thon for charity.